The Hylian Domain Legacy 3
by Bcdefg123
Summary: 8 years after the surprise ending to HDL 2, yet another evil scheme is forming in Hyrule. One last time, the Domain is brought to Hyrule as what starts out as a battle for the Hylian throne turns into something much bigger. Includes Interlude chapters.
1. Interlude: Hyrule

**The Hylian Domain Legacy Interlude: Hyrule**

Somebody snuck behind a rocky platform. "I'm going to kill him…" the shadowy figure muttered to itself, ready to jump up to the platform.

"Thank you for this great honor," Bcdefg123 said on top of the platform, smiling and showing off a medal to a large group of Gorons. Suddenly the shadowy figure leapt up onto the stage.

"Wha-?" Bcdefg123 was caught off guard.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"

The Gorons were surprised. "Not only Bcdefg123, but Princess Zelda visits Death… er, Super Happy Non-Lethal Mountain on the day of the 10th Festival of the Hylian Domain!"

Zelda replied with clear confusion. "…Super Happy Non-Lethal Mountain? What the…"

"Well, this guy here asked us to change it," the head of the Goron tribe said. The Gorons were mountain-dwellers, humanoid with a shell made of rocks on their backs that enabled them to imitate boulders when curled up. And they were yellow.

"Well, 'Death Mountain' wasn't exactly good for tourism, so I pitched the idea…"

"And we like it! This guy, a good thinker, eh?"

"Never mind that…" Zelda said. "You're supposed to be in the parade down THERE!" She pointed towards the distance, where Hyrule Castle Town could be seen. "The parade, remember?" Indeed, crowds of people could also be seen.

"…Oh… I, uh, did forget…"

"Well, then come on! We can still make it before it starts."

"Bye, brudda!" one of the Gorons said as Bcdefg123 and Zelda ran down the mountain.

-----Hyrule Castle Town-----

"Honestly, you're not one to forget about a parade," Princess Zelda said on their horse-pulled float. Since the portal to the Project Legion headquarters was destroyed, ten Hylian years had passed. Bcdefg123 didn't know that while he had only aged a year, everybody in Hyrule had aged ten. The question was only brought up after Bcdefg123 noticed that Zelda (a.k.a. Hylian Girl) was visibly older then she had been in the Hylian Domain painting that hung in the castle, while he had looked more or less the same. "Seriously, what were you really doing up there?"

"I was mapping that place out. Y'know I'm trying to make a map of Hyrule."

"You sure it wasn't the award that got you?" Zelda asked. They wheeled through the streets of people and waved to the parade-goers.

"Well, that was part of it, but now I think the map's complete. I was saving Death Mountain… sorry, Super Happy Non-Lethal Mountain until last, because of all that climbing. But I really think I have a good map of the continent now. The king'll love this," he added.

As the float rolled on, Bcdefg123 looked out at all the people. He started to raise his hand to wave, but then with a realization that sent a thrilling jolt down his body, he jumped off the float and ran into the crowd.

"What are you-?" Zelda yelled at him.

"I saw Altik!" Bcdefg123 answered. He thought he saw a glimpse of him retreating away from the parade route. Not sparing a thought for anyone else, he headed off towards where he might have gone, off onto a side street. The road he ran down reached an end, and he could go either left or right. He looked down either side, but saw no sign of Altik.

"Dangit…" Bcdefg123 said. "Why?"

-----Hyrule Castle-----

"Ah, this is wonderful, just wonderful!" the King of Hyrule said about the map. "Yes, I'll have this put in the Royal Library right away."

"Thank you sir," Bcdefg123 politely bowed.

"Now, there's been a strange rumor that I've heard lately…" the king started, "The rumor goes that somebody has been looting shops in the Kakariko region. The strange part to this is that eyewitnesses say that the thief looks like Altik."

"I just swore I saw somebody that looked like Altik during the parade! I tried to chase after him, but I lost him…"

"Yet something's amiss," Zelda said. "If Altik really was here, then where's everybody else? Why did he run away? And furthermore, why was he stealing?"

"That's what we need to find out," the King said. "Find and detain the suspect Altik. You are dismissed, Bcdefg123." Bcdefg123 and Zelda started to leave.

"You need to stay," the King said to Zelda.

"He's my friend too," Zelda said.

"Zelda… you are a princess, yet it seems like you are never in the castle, where you belong."

"Ten years in a different world changes people, I guess," she said. "It's not like I hate you, or this place, or anything, but I still don't see myself as a queen, or princess, or whatever I am now. Not yet anyway. And besides, this is important."

The King shifted in his throne and thought quietly. "Well... I suppose it's all right. But come back safely."

"You don't need to worry about us," Bcdefg123 said.

"…Perhaps I don't," he said, ending the conversation.

-----Kakariko Village-----

"So where do we begin?" Zelda asked as they walked into Kakariko Village. Nestled in canyon, one dirt road went through the village, with buildings of varying heights on either side. The first time Bcdefg123 visited the place, it vaguely brought to mind a wild west town.

"Let's ask around the markets, and see who's been robbed," Bcdefg123 said. "Dangit! Why would Altik steal anything?"

"I don't think it's Altik," Zelda said. "There isn't a portal left in this world."

"So we thought before we were brought here. And then those Project Legion folks had one. There could always be another, right?"

"Yeah… sure…" Zelda said. "Excuse me." They arrived at the first shop they saw, which seemed to be a bomb shop.

"Eh? The princess, here? We're terribly sorry, m'lady, but there's nothing here to buy right now," the store owner said.

"So you're saying you were robbed, right?" Bcdefg123 said.

"You knew that?"

"Well, uh, we guessed, but…"

"Terrible, just terrible, the kind of luck I've been having. First my warehouse gets blown up, and just when I manage to collect a decent stock, they're all STOLEN!" The store owner leaned over the counter. "Now I got to tell customers that I can't sell anything, because I don't HAVE anything. Tell me, how am I supposed to manage a bomb shop WITHOUT ANY BOMBS?" Bcdefg123 was pelted with spit from the force of the last few words.

"I don't know," Bcdefg123 said, wiping off his face. "Did you see who did it?"

"That's the weird part. It was Altik I swore I saw, but didn't he go back to that other world?"

"How were you robbed?" Zelda questioned.

"It was yesterday after I locked up the store. I happened to look back as I was leaving and saw Altik leaving with a big bag of my bombs. I couldn't catch him, and he escaped. He could be anywhere."

_Why would he need bombs…?_ Bcdefg123 thought. "All right. I guess we're done here…"

"Tell us if you see anything else," Zelda said. "We might be awhile."

"Or not…" Bcdefg123 said, looking out the doorway. The proprietor and Zelda looked outside.

"Thief!" Altik broke into a full-on sprint outside.

"Altik! ALTIK!" Bcdefg123 shouted. At last, the store manager managed to catch Altik and bring him to a stop.

"Got you! Is this the guy you're talking about?"

"It's…" Bcdefg123 and Zelda finally got a good look at him. Perhaps from the back, the guy looked like Altik, but from the front that was not the case. "It's not Altik," he said dejectedly. "It isn't him."

"Thought so…" Zelda said.

"Hero or not, you're still a thief," the store owner said. "Out with it. Did you steal those bombs?"

"Yes," the fake Altik promptly confessed.

"Why?" Bcdefg123 asked him.

Suddenly Hyrule Castle quite literally blew up. They first saw it in the distance, a violent flash of fire, and then heard a cacophony of individual explosions that sounded almost like fireworks.

"No…" Zelda said weakly.

"C'mon!" Bcdefg123 yelled. "We have to go now. Make sure he doesn't escape."

"Got it," the store owner said. But as soon as he looked down at him again, the fake Altik deliberately bit his tongue, choked on his own blood, and died, rendering the shopkeeper a complete failure in only five seconds.

He thought it would be a good idea to go to the castle instead.

-----Hyrule Castle Town-----

"Man, it looks bad… there's no way anybody who was in the castle could have survived," Bcdefg123 said. Groups of people occupied the town square, chatting about what had just happened

"Anybody seen my father?" Zelda asked around.

"I'm sorry, m'lady, but there seem to be no survivors from what I've heard."

-----

"Well, that was a complete waste of time…" somebody leaning against the wall of a shop said, while looking at Zelda and Bcdefg123 as they ran by. "We missed the princess… and lost our puppet…"

The "somebody" looked like a man in his twenties, whose attire was best described as businesslike. However, he wasn't acting the part fully.

"Oh well…" the man said as he started to leave the town, "We'll have more soon enough."

-----

"Hey, princess," Bcdefg123 said. "If somebody wanted so badly to take down the castle, then they could have had the royal family as a target."

"What are you saying?" Zelda asked.

"I'm saying you should go into hiding for a while, or something. You need to protect yourself until somebody finds out who the target was.

"Actually, that'll be harder now," the shop owner said.

"I told you to stay with the criminal!"

"He killed himself. There was nothing I could do, so I followed you here."

"Crap, are you serious? Then we'll never find out what he intended to do!"

Zelda spoke again. "So… where do we go?" Bcdefg123 did a double take. Hylian Girl was never this submissive. "If I'm really the only person in the Royal Family left, then I need to be safe."

"I have a safe house up on the hillside," the store owner said. "It's pretty secluded, and nobody will find it unless they know exactly where it is. It's on the other side of the mountain from Kakariko."

"Alright… take us there," Bcdefg123 said. And when we've done that, come back to the city and find any guards that might have survived the explosion." And so they departed from the city, the smoldering wreckage in the horizon behind them.

**To be continued…**


	2. Interlude: Earth

**The Hylian Domain Legacy Interlude: Earth**

"Dangit!" Brian rolled back in his chair, very angry with himself.

"Still can't find it, huh?" Tory said. He appeared in the doorway.

"No, I can't." Brian was at his computer desk. "I've looked everywhere on this stupid thing, and I've asked everybody else to look too, but we've never found the source of that glitch, and…" The phone started ringing.

"I got it," Tory said. "Keep working."

_Hey, _Brian posted on the Hylian Domain, _did anybody find anything?_

_No, as usual,_ Altik replied a minute later.

_I've thrown every virus detection program at this thing, but no luck, _Zephyr replied.

_Well, this isn't your usual virus…_ Brian said. He was referring to the glitch that brought them to the land of Hyrule two times already. They knew not of its location nor how to implement it.

"Hey, tell everybody to meet up at the town center," Tory said, off the phone.

"The town center?" Brian cast a quizzical look in Tory's direction. "Why?"

"Mac's back," Tory said.

-----Thrillsville Town Center-----

"Mac!" Brian and Tory arrived first.

"Wow. Good to see you both again!" Mac was the founder of the Hylian Domain, and consequently well respected by the entire group.

"Mission trip went well then?" Tory asked him.

"Oh yeah. Can't believe I was gone for two whole years."

"It's you!" Zephyr came next, followed by Link0976. "Wow, it's been a while…"

"Indeed," Mac said. "So how are you all holding up?"

"Well, uh…"

"It's a long story…"

"Altik's here," Link0976 said. From down the road came Altik, followed by a tall, lanky teenager wearing an extremely out-of-place floppy green hat that closely resembled a windsock.

"Who's he? I don't remember him…" Mac said, pointing to Link.

"That's uh, Link," Brian said.

"No, really, who is he? And I think we're missing somebody. Where's Bcdefg123?"

"I said it was a long story…" Zephyr muttered as Brian embarked on the story of the Domain in Hyrule.

-----1 hour later-----

"…And so Link stayed in our world, and Bcdefg123 ran away to Hyrule. Link's been growing really fast, and we've been trying to find a way to get back to Hyrule. To switch Link for Bcdefg123. But we've been going at it for a year." Brian finished. Everybody except him and Mac were bored. Link even fell asleep.

"Is this true…?" Everybody nodded. Mac took a deep breath.

"Well… then I'll help you figure out what's wrong with the forum, I guess…" Mac said. "Amazing, though…"

"Isn't it?" Link0976 said. "Let's go, it's getting late." They all left. Link, still sleeping, was left behind.

-----Brian's house-----

"There's nothing here," Mac said after a thorough check of the Domain's Admin Control Panel. "This is all the same code from when I made a backup before I left two years ago. Board wrappers, image links, they're all exactly the same. Are you sure you aren't all going crazy on me?"

"No, we're telling the truth here," Link0976 said.

"All right, so even if you are," Mac backtracked, "what made you all think that it was something in the forum?"

"As a matter of fact, there's nothing that suggested that," Brian said. "But it was only all of us in the Domain, so we just assumed that that was the case."

"And now we're farther from the answer…" Altik said.

"Not necessarily…" Mac said. "At least now you know that the domain isn't the problem."

"Yeah, but what the heck is?" Zephyr asked.

"Hey, uh, guys?" Tory said. "You better come see this…"

"What is it, Tory?" Everybody decided to stop cramping the computer room and to start cramping the living room instead. The TV was tuned to a local news station.

"…Behind me, you can see a citizen wearing an awful green windsock for a hat being removed from Thrillsville Circle in a body bag. The citizen, is of course, dead…"

The room was suddenly full of cries of confusion and the like.

"Who forgot him THIS time?" someone said.

"Look, just listen!" Brian said, seemingly unaware of the oxymoron he had just created.

"…are saying he appears to have been stabbed to death," the reporter continued, "but police are at a loss over who would commit a crime in broad daylight, and are asking the public to come forth with any information…"

-----Thrillsville Streets-----

A few people had assembled in front of Hank's TVs and were watching the exact same thing through the window. Most of them were wondering how a murder like that could have been committed in the daylight hours, and especially at the city center, around which the city's police force, town hall, and every shop that mattered (Uh… except Hank's of course… yeah…) were all situated.

But one wasn't.

This one person knew how Link was killed.

And he had information that would greatly help the police in finding the criminal.

However, since he himself had committed the crime, something told him that going to the police would be a really stupid thing to do.

It didn't matter now. He had a job to do, and it had been done. He walked off.

At this point it would create a very chilling air of suspense and, oh, I don't know, a general evilness to mention that if a member of the Hylian Domain had been there, they would have recognized the criminal to look uncannily like Marcus.

And they would have been spot on, too.

**To be continued…**

**The Hylian Domain Legacy Interlude: O.P.A.L.**

"We have… some interesting news…" Three people were situated in a dark room. Nobody thought of turning on the lights, this is how they liked it. It created the mood.

"Yes, I never thought that Bcdefg123 would let him go… he looked too much like Altik, and I, for one, am surprised he wasn't suspicious…" the second person said.

"Well, that's to our advantage," the third person said. "Now we know that our models will work…"

"Yes, perhaps, but what about our immediate goals?" the second person said. "What of Link?"

"He is dead," the first person said. "I saw to that myself. The triforce's roots are beginning to crumble… only Zelda remains in our way. But she will not be as easily snuffed."

"She is almost always in the castle, surrounded by guards," the third person said. "We need to prepare, to make sure we can utterly destroy the castle before making our move. So… when is that army coming?"

"It will take a long time… perhaps a century or more to build a sufficient army from the ground up…" the second man said. "I will… probably not live to see it…"

"We can take care of that…" the first man said. "

(Overly Powerful Alliance of eviL)


	3. Prologue: And So It Begins Again Again

**The Hylian Domain Legacy 3 Prologue: And So It Begins Again… Again…**

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

This is actually not just an introduction so much as the reality of the parallel universes of Earth and Hyrule.

On Earth, it was the best of times. Earlier this year, 2015, the leaders of several major countries signed an all-encompassing 'Treaty of Absolute Peace' after getting together and discovering that there was no such thing already in existence. The treaty simply said that 'The countries involved shall do no harm now and forever.'

The treaty mysteriously disappeared the next day, but the sharp decrease in crime, the immediate end of two major wars and a sharp increase in the viewership of family-friendly television were all duly noted.

In the fantasy-like world of Hyrule, the biggest town is Castle Town, where as you might have already guessed, the castle and royal family of Hyrule reside.

Or rather, and this is the part that brings us to the worst of times, used to reside.

Since the unfortunate death of King Hyrule the 56th, leaving no heir behind, the royal family quite literally ceased to exist, and leadership was deferred to a family that had no relation to the previous royal family, but nevertheless had had a history of being in either the castle or the Hylian Army quite often.

While eight years had passed since the closing of the Project Legion portal* on Earth, eighty Hylian years have passed in that same amount of time. While the past eighty years had been peaceful due to Ganon's defeat**, another grave evil was ready to grip the land under its presumably very grave and evil grip***.

*See HDL 2

**See HDL 1

***See HDL 3


	4. Chapter 1: 70 Years Later

**The Hylian Domain Legacy 3 Chapter 1- 70 Years Later**  
"Ready sir?" Two men were talking within Hyrule Castle. One of them was the new King-to-be.

"Yes." The two men proceeded to the castle balcony. The outside of the castle was swarmed with people, waiting to watch the coronation of their new King.

"Hylians!" The Prince spoke. The chatter died down. "These are not the circumstances under which I wish to rule. Yet today I must take up the crown, to inherit it from my father, who, as all of you should know, died peacefully in his sleep yesterday from rapidly deteriorating health. I would have very much liked him to have seen me inherit the throne because he lived to a ripe old age, but sadly that is not the case. And so today, I, Prince Regis the 3rd, promise all of you that I will do my best to uphold the popular practices of my father, and in doing so, pave the way for a better Hyrule." The crowd screamed and cheered for him.

Two other people, one carrying a pillow with a jewel-encrusted gold crown on it, stepped up to the King-to-be. The other person took the crown, and put it on the Prince's head.

"It is my honor to present your new King, King Regis the 3rd!" And so the new King was crowned.

-----

Far away, there was one particular person who had a good reason to oppose the new King's coronation. He had his share of problems.

One of them was that his name was Vercingetorix Regis. He had no idea of the origin of the name, or what possessed his parents, the old King and Queen, to name him so.

His second problem was also one related to his birth, in that he was a twin. A twin to the current King.

His third problem was that he felt he was worthy of being a King, even moreso than his twin brother. He, however, was born a few minutes before Vercingetorix, and won that right. As Vercingetorix's father would often say, "Tough nuts."

His fourth problem is that he often complained about problems one and three to his parents, who never budged from their positions on these matters, and made Vercingetorix rather unpopular compared to his older brother.

His fifth problem was that, five years ago, he was accused of perpetrating a murder he simply did not commit. Although the courts eventually let him go on the basis that he was never proven guilty, he was never able to explain his innocence either, lowering his status within Hyrule even more and sealed his non-kingly fate.

And so Vercingetorix mulled around his estate in Castle Town, trying not to take notice of the crowds outside.

"Just a little more," somebody else in the room said. He looked like a man in his twenties, whose attire was best described as businesslike. However, he wasn't acting the part fully. 'Shrewd' would have been a word that most easily came to mind.

"I hope you're right, Dylan," Vercingetorix said.

"I assure you, within the week, you will be King."

-----

Kakariko Town

At a reasonable distance away from Hyrule, a reasonable little shack dwelled just outside of the center of Kakariko town, reasonably nestled in the shadows of Super Happy Non-Lethal Mountain*. In it lived a lone, but reasonable guy. Or so he thought.

Bcdefg123 was angry. The reason for which was not related to the new King's coronation. The new King he could live with. It wasn't even that the first King Regis, upon ascension to the throne, passed a 'law' which confined Bcdefg123 and Zelda to Kakariko and the mountain surrounding it, for safety's sake after the explosion at Hyrule Castle 70 years previously.

No, the reason was that it had never been repealed. King Regis had died forgetting about the arrangement entirely. And Bcdefg123 just figured that out. Not like it was a problem anymore, really. But still, it's the kind of thing that tends to get on your nerves.

For the past 70 years, Bcdefg123 lived a peaceful live in Kakariko. Because of the fact that people from earth age more slowly in Hyrule, it meant that most of his friends from when he originally settled in Kakariko were dead. Dead, or just really old. Bcdefg123, by comparison, looked about 25 years old now. For safety's sake, he refrained from revealing the fact that he was one of the Heroes from the Hylian Domain to even his friends. He was surprised, given the fact that he had barely aged while everybody else had passed their entire lives, that nobody had figured the truth out.

So Bcdefg123 just sat there, being angry. It was now that he looked upwards at his ceiling, sighing to release his stress.

And that was when he noticed a small piece of technology attached to his ceiling.

-----

Castle Town- Vercingetorix's Estate

"Ah, you're back," Dylan said.

"I did it." A young female with heavily tanned skin entered the estate.

"Well, your reputation as the best Gerudo thief was well-earned!" The Gerudo were a race in Hyrule that lived the farthest out from Castle Town, in the harsh deserts, preferring to live with little outside intervention in the way of government, or anything else, for that matter. Their race was made up of entirely females, except for a single male that is born every hundred years or so. Leaving the million-dollar question of how their tribe survives. Most Hylians had an unflattering, to say the least, view of the Gerudos because their last male born happened to be Ganon, the infamous scourge of Hyrule and widely rumored polygamist. "We were right to seek you out. So you placed the tracking device, as I asked?"

"Of course, I attached it inside his house, as you asked," the girl said. Dylan shook his head disapprovingly.

"What?" the girl asked, offended.

"It doesn't go in his house, it goes on HIM," Dylan said.

"I can do that, no problem!" she said.

"Fine," Dylan said. "You've got five hours, or the deal's off. No money. The important thing is that he doesn't know about the device."

After she left, Vercingetorix spoke up. "So why do we need her? She's an impulsive little brat… And what's a tracking device?"

"A tracking device is a device that can track people's whereabouts. We need Echo, impulsive or not, because she is supposedly the best thief out there. She already proved it to us by locating Bcdefg123, AND getting into his house to place the device unnoticed. That takes skill."

"Perhaps, but why is Bcdefg123 so important?" Vercingetorix asked Dylan.

"Well, Manny…"

"It's VERCINGETORIX!" he yelled. Vercingetorix's sixth problem, now that we've come to it, was other people making up shorter names for him that often had nothing to do with his actual name.

"Whatever. Bcdefg123 is one of the Heroes of the Hylian Domain."

Vercingetorix gaped at him. "You're kidding, right? I thought they all went to that other dimension…" Public knowledge about the Hylian Domain in Hyrule was at best, incomplete.

"They did, except our fellow we're trying to track. My contact tells me he stayed in Hyrule."

"Again with your contact… who is it," Vercingetorix asked.

"Does it matter?"

"I have a right to know."

"Anyway, I'm trying to have a tracking signal attached to Bcdefg123," Dylan continued on, ignoring Vercingetorix completely. "It's important because he's a hero, and he'll likely stand in our way."

"Hmm. I see now…" Vercingetorix contemplated this.

-----

Kakariko Town

Bcdefg123 turned the gadget over and looked at it. _This is NOT Hylian, _he thought. _But… what is it? And how did it get in my house?_ He put it down, stumped by it. _That makes two unsolvable mysteries… this thing, and that fake Altik 70 years ago who deliberately killed himself before saying anything._ In truth, he had given up on the Altik thing as something he would never be able to solve. He left the strange device on the table and stood up to get a glass of fresh Lon Lon Milk™. _I think I need to pay a visit to the King. Maybe he'll know something. Plus, I think it's high time I get my confinement officially ended…_

He turned around, and noticed that the device had vanished. He looked around to see if it fell on the floor.

No.

He searched his pockets to see if he had put in one of them and forgot he did.

No again. _That's really weird…_ Finally, after he was sure he searched all the places it could have possibly been, he gave up and started his great journey to Castle Town. In reality, Castle Town was only about a mile or two from Kakariko, and could be easily seen once outside the village.

"…and have fun!" A girl walked out from the house across from Bcdefg123's.

"Hello, Zelda," Bcdefg123 said to the girl. She was not related to the princess Zelda, or the royal family for that matter, in any way. Only after King Regis took the throne did the popularity of Zelda as a girl's name skyrocket. At least in Kakariko it did, and indeed it was hard to say the name Zelda in Kakariko out loud without accidentally gaining the attention of no less than thirty-seven other women. Another notable statistic about Kakariko is that no more than thirty-eight females lived there.

"Oh, hello Brian," Zelda said. Bcdefg123 had used his real name in his dealings with the townsfolk to make it easier to live in peace. "What's going on?"

"Oh, I need to travel to Castle Town for something."

"Oh really… I was going to Castle Town too," she said in an almost maddeningly gentle kind of way. "For a friend's party."

"Interesting," Bcdefg123 said. And so they continued on in silence. At least, they did for about thirty more seconds until they met another young woman on the path out of the city. She immediately spotted Bcdefg123 and waved and sputtered wildly.

"Bcdefg123!" she said. "It… It's him!"

"What?" Bcdefg123 said. "No wait, you must be…" And before he could say 'mistaken', she started to hug him.

"Bcdefg123, the… hero?" Zelda said quietly to herself.

"Ahh, I want your autograph!" the girl said, taking out some a pencil and ripping a piece of paper from a notepad.

"Uh…" Bcdefg123 said. _If it'll get you to go away, sure…_ He signed his name on the piece of paper, and handed it back to the girl.

"Yeah! I've got the signature of a hero!" The girl bounced away into town, leaving Bcdefg123 quite embarrassed. Too embarrassed, in fact, to notice that something had just been slipped into his pocket.

"So…" Zelda said. "Are you…"

"Yeah… actually, I'd like to show you something in the castle. If you have the time, that is," Bcdefg123 said.

"That'd be nice," she said. "Sure."

"Wait!" Bcdefg123 said. They stopped. "What the… they don't have pencils in Hyrule!" He looked back, but the girl had disappeared.

-----

Vercingetorix's Estate

"Two more hours," Dylan said. He searched his pockets. "Hey, Chris…"

"It's Vercingetorix!" came an angry reply from down the hall.

"Have you seen my pencil anywhere?!"

-----

Hyrule Castle

"I'm Bcdefg123. This is Zelda. We need to see the King," he said to a guard keeping watch at the gates. After doing a double take at Bcdefg123, he went inside. A minute later he came out.

"You have been granted an audience with the king."

"So… the famous hero returns," King Regis the 3rd said. "I'm familiar with the records that say you disappeared into Kakariko. We've never heard so much as a peep out of you since."

"Yeah… about that…" Bcdefg123 said. "Your grandfather confined me to Kakariko 70 years ago for safety reasons. I don't think there's any real need for that anymore. So could you… uh… do something about that?"

"Consider it done. Is that all?"

"One more thing. Can you grant us access into the royal gallery?"

"Didn't you know? My father made the gallery public. You don't need my permission to go in. Even if you did, though, it wouldn't be a problem."

"Thanks." Bcdefg123 and Zelda both bowed and departed to the gallery.

"What do you need to show me in the gallery?" Zelda said once they entered.

"This." They stopped in front a large painting that showed six people smiling.

"One of them looks like…"

"Me. I know," Bcdefg123 said. "This is the Hylian Domain."

-----

Vercingetorix's Estate

"Ah, there you are," Vercingetorix said.

"Mission accomplished!" Echo said. "I disguised myself and slipped the thing into the guy's pocket. I even had a bit of fun doing it… Although… that device may not have been necessary."

"What are you talking about?" an irritated Dylan said.

"Bcdefg123's in Castle Town right now. I followed him here."

"Impossible. He's been in Kakariko nonstop for 70 years, why move now?" Dylan asked.

"I don't know. But he's in the castle right now," Echo said.

"Hmmph." Dylan held up his wristwatch. "Send in three battle units. Hyrule Castle, right now." He tossed Echo a small pouch. She opened it, and revealed the pouch's contents: A single large green rupee, a gem that served as money in Hyrule. This particular large rupee was worth 200 regular rupees. "You might hear from me again soon, Echo." She disappeared out the door.

"Echo… hah!" Dylan said. "Couldn't be any more obvious in picking a false name, couldn't we?"

"Now what?" Vercingetorix asked.

"We wait, and see what happens," Dylan said.

-----

Castle Gallery

"So… you stayed in Hyrule, but what about the rest of your friends?" Zelda asked.

"They all went back to Earth," Bcdefg123. "Well, the last Princess Zelda didn't. She stayed… but after the attack on the castle, she left for Kakariko with me. Eventually, she died, and… well…"

"You miss them?"

"Yeah," Bcdefg123 said, looking up at the picture. "I was a bit caught up in the moment when I made my decision to stay here… I mean, excitement and adventure and all that, but now I kinda regret it."

"There's no way back and forth between the worlds?"

"I convinced myself there wasn't. I went all over Hyrule shortly after I decided to stay here, looking for another portal. But now I'm not so sure… some weird things have been happening."

Suddenly, three people walked into the gallery through another door, each brandishing twin swords. One of the people had blood on his swords.

"Bcdefg123!" one of them yelled.

"What do you want?" Bcdefg123 yelled back.

"Your life!" one of them said.

"Run!" Bcdefg123 said to Zelda. Once she was gone, Bcdefg123 spotted a sword in a glass case. He kicked the case, shattering it, and grabbed the sword, unsheathing it. It felt rather unwieldy. _This is what I get for 70 years without wielding a sword… _Bcdefg123 thought. _Oh well!_ He rushed towards the three people, and stopped when he discovered, like the criminal 70 years previously, they all looked like Altik.  
**  
END of Chapter 1**

*See the Interlude chapters


	5. Chapter 2: The One Who Couldn't Be King

**The Hylian Domain Legacy 3 Chapter 2: The Brother Who Couldn't Be King**

"Altik look-alikes… three of them!" Bcdefg123 said. "Why do you want me dead? And why do all three of you look so similar?" The look-alikes didn't look like they were in any mood to talk. They flung themselves into battle instead. Bcdefg123 parried the first one's attack with his sword, but the second grazed his other shoulder with his sword.

"Agh, get away, you!" He swung his stolen sword at the enemy who hurt him, and somehow the blow connected perfectly. He was dead, or at the very least, gravely injured.

"Who's next?" Bcdefg123 said. The third Altik look-alike, the one with the blood on his swords already, answered the challenge. He used his two swords together in a way the others didn't. It reminded Bcdefg123 of Altik himself, and his skill. "Really tough, aren't you?" Bcdefg123 was focused purely on defense. Suddenly, he was aware of the other look-alike charging at him from the back.

"Got him!" said Zelda, who jammed a sharp piece of broken glass into the weaker look alike. He too collapsed on the ground. The remaining enemy who was engaged with Bcdefg123 backed off and retreated.

"Come back here!" Bcdefg123 ran to catch the escaping enemy, but stopped when he heard the sounds of slow clapping coming from elsewhere in the room.

"Good job! I think I'm really starting to like you," said a voice from above Bcdefg123. He looked up but saw nothing.

"Where are you?" Bcdefg123 said. To his surprise, somebody jumped down in front of him. "No, wait… WHO are you? Are you with them?"

"I'm not, strictly speaking." The person stood up.

"I've seen you before!" Zelda said.

"Not in person, I'd expect," the young woman said. "The name's Echo. Yes, that Echo," she added, anticipating Zelda's next question.

"Who the heck… Echo?" Bcdefg123 said.

"The legendary Gerudo thief," she said, flinging back her medium-length red hair. "That's me." Bcdefg123 estimated that she couldn't have been older than 20, at least by Earth standards, and as far as Bcdefg123 knew, those standards applied to Gerudos as well.

"So, why are you here? To fight?" Bcdefg123 tightly gripped the sword in his left hand.

Echo laughed. "Of course not! I just wanted to congratulate you, that's all. I was watching the whole thing. I especially liked the bit with you and the piece of glass," she said to Zelda.

"Thanks…" Zelda said in a way that plainly questioned Echo's sincerity.

"In fact…" she said, throwing something to Zelda, "Take it."

"This is…" Zelda said, sliding a small dagger out of a leather sheath.

"So you go around giving out weapons?" Bcdefg123 said.

"Well, my employer seemed mighty interested in you…" Echo said, turning to leave. "I just thought you might need that later, is all."

"Your employer?" Zelda asked.

"Who's that?" Bcdefg123 added.

"Please, I can't reveal information like that… unless, you have 50 rupees," Echo smiled deviously.

Bcdefg123 only had two or three lying around in his pocket, so he settled on insulting Echo's sense of honor instead.

"Jeez. I was only joking. Well, ta ta." And with that, Echo activated a smoke bomb and disappeared.

"What happened here?!" the King said after he entered the room.

"…We got attacked," Zelda said.

"What?! In the castle?!"

"Really…" the King said, after everything was explained. "Well, what possessed them to attack the castle then?"

"They wanted me dead for some reason. I don't know why, and I don't know how they found me, and I really don't know where they got the guts to attack here."

"Fine, fine…" King Regis said. "Keep the sword, too."

"Why?" Bcdefg123 looked at it for the first time. It was the fabled Master Sword of Hyrule, and Bcdefg123 was shocked to have realized it. "The Master Sword?"

"Well yes… as I'm sure you know, the Master Sword used to belong to whichever Link was around back in the old days. There is no Link any more. I'd actually feel more comfortable knowing somebody was using it, and judging by the fact that you're still alive, you know how to use it well."

"Uh, that's not entirely…" Bcdefg123 said.

"The second thing is that the Master Sword only shows its true power when the wielder owns part of the Triforce. The Triforce, or in fact, any piece of it at all, has not been seen for well over 50 years."

"What? Why?" Bcdefg123 remembered that the thing that got the Domain back to Earth the first time they had arrived in Hyrule was the Triforce.

"No one knows…" the King said.

"I'm late for the party!" Zelda said.

"Ah, crap," Bcdefg123 said. "We have to go now. Wait… one more thing. Just about an hour or two ago, I found a piece of technology in my house that might have been from Earth. The thing was, it wasn't mine."  
The King shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know of anything like that. Nobody was supposed to be keeping tabs on you or anything. That's probably why my grandfather forgot about your confinement."

"All right…" And so Bcdefg123 and Zelda left the castle.

-----

Vercingetorix's Estate

"Our two Alpha units were defeated, and our stronger Gamma unit decided to withdraw. The report says that somebody else was fighting along with him," Dylan said to Vercingetorix.

"A girl from Kakariko. About 16 years old, maybe more," Echo said.

"And where did you come from?" Dylan asked.

"I had a front-row seat to the fight. I think you're wasting your time and money, personally."

"Why's that?" Vercingetorix asked, sitting on a bed.

"Bcdefg123 took down one of the Alpha units, but he acted surprised when he actually got him, like he wasn't expecting it. On top of that, he struggled with his sword a bit, like he couldn't control the weight. On the other hand, the girl killed the other Alpha unit using only a shard of glass, and she did it without any hesitation at all."

"Echo, your next assignment is to get any information you can find on that girl," Dylan said. "The price will be the same as Bcdefg123. 50 rupees up front, and 200 on completion to my satisfaction. You have one week."

"Deal," Echo said, and Dylan gave her a purple rupee, worth 50 green rupees. She left.

"You seriously don't think a girl is worth this much trouble?" Vercingetorix asked.

"No, of course not," Dylan said. "I want her to stay off our backs for a while… it seems to me she's taking an unusual amount of interest in her assignments."

"Ah…" Vercingetorix said. "So you're hoping that that before she comes back, this'll already be over."

"Exactly."

-----

Later that day

"Oh please…" Bcdefg123 said as he discovered another Altik look-alike… in front of his house. "Can I help you with anything?" he asked, trying to avoid another fight. The look-alike ran for it. Bcdefg123 just watched. _Y'know… I really don't care right now. As long as I'm not attacked again._ He went inside his house.

"BCDEFG123!" A questionably dressed man screamed his name while running into the village. "Huh huh huh huh!" he went, a 'huh' for every step he took. He had a white t-shirt on with overalls, and a red hat. He was the infamous postman of Hyrule.

"You have one letter, sir!" he said in a loud voice right in front of Bcdefg123, who had just come out of his house. Nothing else happened.

"… You said you had a letter for me, right?" Bcdefg123 said, breaking the silence.

"Yes! One letter for you, sir!" the postman shouted. Silence again.

"So, uh, feel like giving it to me?"

"One letter, sir!" he shouted again. Finally, Bcdefg123 gave up and searched the basket that the postman was carrying on his back. He sifted through the many letters until he found one addressed for him. It had no return address. He went back inside his house with the letter.

The postman still did not get the message. "One letter, sir!" he shouted, but nobody was around to hear him.

-----  
_  
Bcdefg123, we know all about you and your many adventures. And so we are kindly requesting your cooperation before we become… less kind, _the letter started off ominously. _In Hyrule, a relic called the Didgeridoo of Minutes can be found. The relic was split into two pieces long ago. One is known to currently reside with the Zora tribe, while the other can be found somewhere in the Gerudo deserts. With the complete didgeridoo, wait in the alley beside the Happy Mask shop at sundown five days from now. To ensure this does happen, we feel it is necessary to explain to you that the incident you endured in the castle gallery earlier today can be repeated many times over if necessary. Except worse. We expect nothing less than your full cooperation. We also took the liberty of giving your companion a similar letter. _The letter included two pictures. One was of a large group of Altik look-alikes, perhaps a hundred or more, and the other was of Zelda.  
_  
What the... this is blackmail! _Bcdefg123 rushed out of his house again, and into Zelda's.

"Hey! Did Zelda come home from her party yet?" he asked Zelda's mother.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, she did."

"Did she get a letter in the mail today?" Bcdefg123 questioned further, vaguely hoping that he wouldn't be suspected of prying, and dashing the fear by reasoning that it was for the cause of safety.

"Yes."

"And did she leave the house again?"

"Yes. She said she was going to the waterfall."  
_  
The waterfall… so that would mean the Zora's domain._ "Thanks!" Bcdefg123 said, and ran out of the village towards the land of the Zoras.  
**  
END of chapter 2**


	6. Chapter 3: Can You Be My Sword?

**The Hylian Domain Legacy 3 Chapter 3- Will You Be My Sword?**

"Oh my god… why do the Zoras have to be on top of a waterfall?" Bcdefg123 asked himself at the bottom of a huge waterfall. He looked around and saw a semi-worn path, laden with switchbacks that didn't look too overly painful to hike up. Bcdefg123 started running up the mountainside path. It was slow going. He ran out of energy only 50 feet up and had to rest for a while. Remembering the letter, he forced himself to keep walking up the slope. _I don't have time to rest…_ he remembered. He trudged on, passing underneath the waterfall. Sapped of his strength, he took one last step and passed out. He landed on a slope and rolled off the edge of the path, which overlooked a 100-foot drop into the waters below.

-----

Earth

It was nighttime in Thrillsville, and Altik was heading back to his apartment alone, returning from a late-night dinner.

"Whoah!" A gunshot suddenly sounded and he jumped towards a wall. _That sounded really close by…_ He looked in all directions to try and find out where it came from. Looking down an alleyway across from him, he heard a bit of movement. He rushed down the alley, unsheathing his dual swords and hoping to take whatever it was that tried to shoot him by surprise. He found nothing.

-----

Hyrule

Bcdefg123 opened his eyes. He saw water reflections dancing on a cave wall- or was it the ceiling? It had to be, because he had his back to the ground, was lying down, and was looking straight up. And there was only one place in Hyrule he knew of that had water in a cave…

"It's the Zora's Domain," he said, quickly sitting up. Indeed it was: he was on one of the many rocks that dotted the lake, the source of all Hyrule's water. Many humanoid beings were swimming around it, or otherwise resting on rocks. The humanoid beings were, of course, Zoras, who were covered in silver scales and who were well-adapted to water, possessing gills alongside lungs and fins alongside hands. Despite their amphibious nature, Zoras became sick if they spent too much time away from water. Bcdefg123 looked the other way and saw that two of them had been standing right behind him.

"You're awake then?" the taller one said.

"I'd think so, at least," Bcdefg123 smiled. He realized that he didn't even seem to be hurt. "How did I get up here? I thought I was dead once I fell…"

"Well, that would be because of her." The Zora motioned towards the other, younger Zora.

"You were falling into the Lower Hylian Lake, and I was right under you, so I helped break your fall once you were in the water by catching you. If I wasn't there, you probably would have collided with the rocks…"

Bcdefg123 stood up and thanked the person who saved him. It struck him that she didn't look too much like the other Zoras he'd seen. She had a pointed head and was wearing clothes, including a shirt with a fairly giant blue gem in the center and a cape that served to accent her image as a walking isosceles triangle. Other than that, she had a thoughtful, unconcerned expression that reminded Bcdefg123 of Zelda… Zelda…

"Were there any other outsiders who came here recently?" Bcdefg123 asked the two.

"Uh, yeah," the taller Zora said. "One came about half an hour before you did. A girl came and asked about some ancient relic that we've never heard about before. She said it was really important, so I told her to see the King of the Zoras. And that was the last I saw of her."

"So she definitely headed off towards the King?" Bcdefg123 asked.

"Yes, she was granted an audience with the King and she went to see him."

"So, uh, can I see him too? I need to find her, because… well, I need to know she's safe…"

The taller Zora smiled. "I see. Then I'll escort you to…"

"No, I can do that," the other Zora said. "You need to stay here to watch the entrance, right?"

"All right, Raza," the taller one said, and jumped off into the water, swimming off towards what Bcdefg123 presumed to be the entrance to the Domain.

"Thanks again for saving my life. I owe you big time," Bcdefg123 said.

"Oh, not at all!" Raza said. "I was just at the right place at the right time. Follow me." She jumped into the water and swam off. Bcdefg123 briefly wondered whether she expected him to start swimming, but then he found a dry trail. Surprisingly, he had to run to keep up with her. When they reached a dead end, Raza popped her head above water. "It's through here," she said. What Bcdefg123 presumed was a dead end actually continued on underwater. "You'll have to climb in, but the water's fine." He jumped in the water obediently and floated next to Raza. The water felt cold to him, but it was probably perfect for Raza.

"The pathway to the King's chamber is designed so only a Zora, or otherwise somebody with a Zora escort, like you, can get in. There is a current that runs in this path that will push anybody without the swimming skills of a Zora backwards, so they can't get in, or otherwise they will drown halfway through."

"That's interesting," Bcdefg123 said, feeling once again the fondness towards Hyrule that had made him stay behind 80 Hylian years ago.

"Grab my hand, and take a deep breath," Raza said. "And don't let go. One, two, three…"

Raza went underwater and Bcdefg123 had no choice but to follow. He tightened his grasp on Raza's hand. Looking ahead, he saw the current that they had to pass, and with surprising force, Raza tugged him through it. He could no longer keep his eyes open and closed them, trusting Raza to guide him through.

Raza looked at him, smiling. "Haha! Don't worry about it!" Well, there was an interesting fact that Bcdefg123 never knew: Zoras could talk underwater. Just then, Bcdefg123 felt the sheath that contained the Master Sword leave him. Without seeing, he made a grab for it with his free hand and surprisingly managed to hold onto it. He felt the current subside and he broke the surface, able to stand in the pool that was the King's chamber. Gasping for air and shivering, he climbed up onto dry land, first throwing the Master Sword onto the rock.

"Is that… the Master Sword?" Raza asked, a little more quietly than usual.

"Indeed!" somebody else in the room said. The king looked on from a stone balcony, from which a small waterfall originated. "I just got word that the Master Sword was removed from its display within Hyrule Castle and given to a Bcdefg123."

"The hero?" Raza asked in shock.

"Yeah. I'm Bcdefg123, but that's not the point right now. I'm looking for somebody, and I hear that she asked you about an ancient artifact, the Didgeridoo of Minutes. I need to be with her- I mean…" Bcdefg123 said, flustered, "I'm supposed to be helping her find it."

"I sent her up to the top of the mountain," the King said. "There lies the entrance to another cave, the Cave of Song, called so because explorers have heard a faint melody within it, which cannot be traced to any source. If you cross-reference it with a legend of Hyrule which says that a half of an ancient artifact is hidden somewhere on this mountain, I believe that what you seek may very well be there. Your friend is exploring this cave as we speak."

"Really?! Can you show me how to get there?" Bcdefg123 asked.

"I'll come with you," Raza said. "Follow me!"

-----

Earth

Altik continued walking, albeit in an exceedingly wary state of mind. No sooner than he started again he was shot at again. Half-expecting it, he was able to avoid it. This time, however, he saw what he was being shot with, because something stuck in the wall he was walking against. After checking to see if he could find his assailant, he examined the projectile used. He took it out of the wall and turned it over slowly. It was marked with a ten-character serial number starting with the letters KIT.  
_  
Unbelievable… this tranquilizer is… _Altik struggled to gain control over his thoughts._ But why now, after thirteen years? _The assailant took advantage of Altik's distraction to shoot another tranquilizer his way. Dodging it yet again, he finally found his mark in the form of a hooded person on the roof of the shop he was looking at.

-----

Hyrule

"Hmm…" Bcdefg123 listened to the faint music.

"It sounds like it's coming from everywhere, doesn't it?" Raza asked him.

"Hang on…" Bcdefg123 closed his eyes in an attempt to concentrate. There was no origin that could be derived from the music. "Yeah. I guess it is. But how?"

"If we knew that, we wouldn't be here, would we?" Raza said.

"I guess so." Bcdefg123 said. "Let's go."

As they descended deeper into the cavern, Bcdefg123 was surprised at how it was lighted every so often, a testament to how they were, after all, still on a mountain.

"Oh, you did come! I was worried that you went to the desert instead," said a voice from deeper inside the cave.

"So… you're safe, I take it?" Bcdefg123 asked Zelda.

"That's good," Raza said.

"Huh? Who else is with you?" Zelda asked.

"She's Raza, a Zora girl who saved my life when I was coming up here. Coming here yourself was a very bad idea!"

"Yet she didn't need somebody to save her…" Raza whispered. Bcdefg123 didn't say anything; there was no denying the truth of what she said.

"Did you say something?" Zelda called back. Bcdefg123 grumbled to himself and went ahead.

A few minutes later, Raza, who was leading the group, stopped.

"What is it?" Bcdefg123 asked.

"Listen to the music. It's louder here, isn't it?"

The music was now distinguishable as a happy song… if it were a bit faster. It sounded more like something that somebody would play to themselves if they were lonely.

"Hmm…" Zelda said, feeling the walls. "There's a door here…"

"What? A door? And nobody's seriously noticed that before?" Bcdefg123 said, examining the spot where Zelda had done the same. "No, it's not a door, exactly. It's more like a giant rock blocking a passage. It seems like it couldn't have been here naturally… Zelda, Raza, help me push this here…" All three of them attempted to push the rock from its resting place. To their surprise, it started to nudge a little bit. When they stopped, it rolled back into place. "And again! On three, one… two… three!" With renewed strength, they started to push the rock once more. This time, they took the rock further, so they had a glimpse into the next room. Bcdefg123 saw a downhill slope to the immediate left. "Push it to the left!" he yelled. The rock started to roll down a couple feet, and then it was stopped by a cave wall. The three of them went in and examined the room.

"I think this is it!" Zelda said. She picked up a small, yet extremely polished, wooden stick. One of its ends looked like it was snapped off from something else.

"It's a nice stick, but is it really what we're looking for?" Bcdefg123 asked.

"Just hold it," Zelda said, giving it to him. When he touched it, he heard the melody sounding as if it were originating from within him. "Isn't it cool?" Zelda asked, but Bcdefg123's thoughts lay elsewhere.

"Wow," he said as the music continued in his head. "This may be even more annoying than the piano."

-----

"So you found it?" the Zora King asked them back in his hidden chamber.

"Yes," Raza said, and held up the piece of wood so he could see it. "The song came from this thing. It was fairly easy to find."

"I didn't even have to use the sword…" Bcdefg123 said.

"What do you mean?" the King asked him. "Were you expecting to use it?"

"Well…" Bcdefg123 said, thinking it would be polite to explain why he was taking an ancient Zora artifact. "It's related to why I got the sword in the first place. The King of Hyrule let me have it because there were a few attackers within the castle earlier this morning. They've been spotted in other places around the land, but nobody knows why. There's another thing too… they all look like Altik, another one of the Hylian Domain heroes."

"That's interesting…" the King asked.

"There seems to be many of them. There was a letter- well, blackmail is a better word for it- that I got that says we need to retrieve the Didgeridoo, otherwise they threatened an attack on us."

"They might have wanted to kill us by doing this," Zelda said, "But now I think they want the instrument. But what can it do if it's made complete?"

"Good question…" the King said. "What do YOU plan to do with it, though?"

"I… I don't know…" Bcdefg123 said. "First we need to see what it does once it's whole. Then I think we'll try to find out who wants it. The person told us to meet them a couple days from now. We have that time to figure it out, so… I guess we'll play it by ear."

"All right then. I trust a hero with our relic, so take the didgeridoo piece. And if there's anything else we can help you with, please ask."

"There is," Bcdefg123 said. "This Master Sword…" He unsheathed it and held it up. "When King Regis gave it to me, he said it had lost its power to repel evil. He didn't know how to get that power back."

"Well…" the King said, his cheerful mood dropping a few noticeable notches, "I'm afraid I do."

"Huh?" Zelda asked. "You're afraid… you do…?"

"Raza… show them."

"This way, please," Raza said. Puzzled, Zelda and Bcdefg123 followed her through the passage to the lake.

"Where are we going?" Zelda asked first.

"Please. Just follow me." Was it just a trick of the water-reflected light, or was Raza… shedding tears? As they walked down into the Zora cave residences, Bcdefg123 looked at Zelda meaningfully, but she was admiring the Zora residences. What they were looking at was a large aquatic chamber, with pathways leading in all directions. Names of families were etched on the rock directly above each pathway, signifying the people who lived there. They arrived at one bearing a name 'Raza'. _Just one name here… does she live alone?_

They went inside. The water dropped off to create a two foot pool in a room big enough for possibly a few more people. Bcdefg123 noted the presence of a few fish in the pool. There was a corner of the room where the rock rose above the water to create level ground, and this was where Bcdefg123 and Zelda made their way to. Sitting down, they asked Raza why she took them here.

"Take out the sword," she said half-heartedly.

"No. Not until you tell me everything," Bcdefg123 said firmly.

"All right…" Raza said, sitting down in the pool. Only her head remained above water. "I am the sword's power."

"What the… that's absurd, you can't possibly be…"

"I'm serious. Hold the sword outward… like that…"

"Ok, but I don't see how this will…" Bcdefg123 stopped. "It… does look like you…" He felt weird for saying it, but the way the sword seemed to echo her… Raza's face looked somewhat like the handle and guard of the sword, and the jewels in the hilt and Raza's clothes matched up… the cape also looked familiar, and when Raza stood up straight, like she was doing now, there was almost an eerie resemblance between her and the sword. Bcdefg123 was seized by a sudden, inexplicable desire to grab Raza by the neck and use her as a sword, but he let go of that rather alarming thought. Suddenly, both Raza and the blade of the Master Sword began to glow blue.

"Whoah… what are you doing?!" Bcdefg123 said, jerking away the Master Sword.

"I had hoped that the sword would never be used during my lifetime…" Raza said. "But then you came, and I saw the sword, and I was trying to deny it. But now I'm ready. I'm going to merge with the sword!" Glowing blue threads connected Raza and the Master Sword, and the water Raza was standing in also began to glow blue as well.

"No!" Bcdefg123 yelled, and panicked. Zelda took a more direct approach: she threw herself onto Raza, toppling her over into the water, disrupting the entire process. The eerie blue light vanished.

"Is she…?" Bcdefg123 said to himself, examining the Master Sword. Nothing seemed different about it, so he sheathed it. Raza started thrashing underwater and slipped free from Zelda. She stood up.

"Why did you stop me?! This is my destiny!"

"That's a stupid reason!" Bcdefg123 yelled. "Now listen to me." Bcdefg123 jumped in the water right in front of her. "I never asked you to do what you just tried to do. The sword's been working just fine for me so far, power to repel evil or no power to repel evil. What if you never came out of the sword?!" Raza was in the water sobbing now.

"Uh, hey, do you think you're being harsh…?" Zelda said.

"And you did it so readily! Like you weren't even worth anything in the first place!"

"Stop it!" Zelda yelled.

"Hey! Don't interrupt me, I was right in the middle of this great heartfelt lecture!" Bcdefg123 said like a child being deprived a toy.

"You were… you were acting…?" Zelda said.

"Well, maybe I was exaggerating a little…" Bcdefg123 said, looking from Zelda to Raza, "But the point is… you saved me, remember?" He extended a hand to help Raza up. "I still haven't paid you back for that." Raza looked up at him and allowed him to help her up. "If you really want to help us, then help us get that other piece of the didgeridoo."

"Really? You'll let me come?" Raza said.

"Of course! If you want to, that is," Bcdefg123 said.

"I will!" Raza said.

"Welcome to the club!" Zelda said.

-----

Earth

"So…" Altik said, up on the rooftop. "Why do you want to kill me? And why do you have a Kitla-grade tranquilizer? Kitla was extinguished thirteen years ago."

"So it was…" the man said. "And everyone involved died then. Everybody… except for the two people on this rooftop."  
**  
END of Chapter 3**


	7. Chapter 4: The Gerudo

**The Hylian Domain Legacy 3 Chapter 4- The Gerudo**  
Altik studied his attacker once again, but not much can be accomplished on this front when your attacker makes an effort to stay well hidden in a trenchcoat and hat.

"So you're Kitla," Altik supposed. "Fine, let's say I believe you. What are you planning to do after you killed me?"

"Did I ever actually say anything about killing you, though?" The shady character vanished.

"What?!" Altik said, looking wildly around him. "Where are you?!" He heard no answer. Instead, he heard footsteps. He drew his swords, but surprisingly discovered that he had no swords to draw. _Where did my swords go?!_ He jumped down from the roof in front of the mystery person instead.

"Aahh!" the person screamed. He was not the man that Altik had almost fought earlier.

"...ShadowDeeps?" Altik said, surprised. ShadowDeeps was the newest member of the Hylian Domain. Surprisingly, he was also the oldest out of all of them, and had proved himself to be an experienced (not to mention very eloquent) adult. "What are you doing out here this time of night?!"

"I maintain that my sobriquet has remained DeepStar, and I would like it if you addressed me thusly. As for the matter of myself being outside, I simply couldn't fall asleep, and surmised a midnight walk would be the best resolution."

"Alright…" Altik said. "Did you see anybody else here?"

"Not a soul…" DeepStar said.

-----

Hyrule, Gerudo Desert Entrance

"The other piece of the didgeridoo should be in this desert…" Bcdefg123 said. "It could be anywhere. The desert's so huge…"

"But you mapped it all out, didn't you?" Zelda asked. "When you created the Hyrule map."

"Well…" he explained, "Nobody has ever traversed the whole desert… so I kind of filled it in with blank desert." He opened his map, and handed it back to Zelda. Almost the entire right side of the map showed desert areas, exceedingly flat.

"You… cheated?" Raza asked.

"No… there's nobody who could explore it all. We only have three days until we need to deliver the complete didgeridoo. Maybe we'll see something new…"

The three headed into the Gerudo village, nestled on the shady side of a cliff on the outskirts of the desert.

"Isn't this where that thief lives?" Zelda asked. "Y'know… whatever her name was…"

"I think so… hey, look…" Bcdefg123 found a sign posted on one of the buildings.

"Wanted: The Gerudo thief Echo…" Raza read aloud.

"She's been giving us more than a bit of trouble," a woman said. The three turned around to find a Gerudo standing behind them. "We don't get visitors very often… especially Zora…" she said, eying Raza with a surprised look. "Anyway, Echo's been disgracing the Gerudo with her thieving, selling herself off to the highest bidder. She cut off all her ties with the village months ago… and it's said that nobody has ever encountered her and survived."

Zelda and Bcdefg123 exchanged an extremely meaningful glance. If what she said was true, then there was something very significant in the fact that they were alive.

"Have you ever heard of something called the Didgeridoo of Minutes?" Bcdefg123 asked. The woman looked up thoughtfully for a second.

"No… I don't believe I have…" she said.

"Thanks…" Zelda said as the three left.

"So what now?" Raza asked.

"Who knows?" Bcdefg123 shrugged. "We can ask around, and maybe somebody would know about it, but nobody would know where it is. That's why it's lost…"

"It doesn't hurt to ask," Zelda said.

"There's a difference between knowing that something exists and knowing where it is, though…" Bcdefg123 said, arguing his case. "But… this is a very big desert…"

"Then find whoever would know about it and try asking." Zelda said.

-----

"The didgeridoo…?" An exceptionally frail old woman resided in a house bearing a 'historian' sign on it. "I believe I've heard something about it… where is it now…?"

And while she searched through the stacks of books around the room, the other three looked at each other, hoping that this wouldn't be a waste of time.

"Found it! The didgeridoo of minutes was first heard of over a thousand years ago. The person who possessed it realized its great power, and split the thing into two, hiding them across the land… and then, centuries later, a scholar mentioned a 'peculiar object, almost like a woodwind instrument'. That was about three hundred years ago… the scholar in question wrote of his travels into the Gerudo desert, left his journal behind in town, and was then never seen again."

"So… it's in the desert…" Raza said, confirming their worst fear.

-----

Vercingetorix's estate

"You…" Dylan sputtered as he took a few papers. One of them had Zelda's picture on it. "It only took you two days to get information on her?"

"Bcdefg123 had comparatively few public records on hand compared to Zelda, someone who was born and raised in Hyrule," Echo said. "It was a simple task."

Dylan flipped through the papers. "Yes, this will be enough…" Echo cleared her throat loudly. Dylan got the message and fetched another pouch of rupees. Echo opened it, checking the contents inside. She closed it with a satisfying look on her face.

"Anything else?" she said.

"Grr…" Dylan grumbled. She was working far too fast, faster than Dylan could assign tasks to occupy her. There was nothing else that he could have her do… or was there? He had the sneaking suspicion for a while now that Echo was trying to find out the details of what she was working on, so would it be more advantageous to not assign her anything and have her pry around on her own…? Or just end it now? It was a gamble either way.

"Bcdefg123 and Zelda will enter this city in three days," Dylan said. "When they do, kill them."

-----

The next day, Gerudo Desert

Bcdefg123, Zelda, and Raza trudged on through the Gerudo Desert, having departed from the Gerudo village after a night's rest at the inn.

"This isn't the way to do this…" Zelda said.

"Well, have any suggestions?" Bcdefg123 asked.

"No… and I'm out of water…" Zelda said.

"Hmm..." Bcdefg123 said, "That actually… reminds me of this puzzle I once heard…"

-----

HDL Puzzle 1: 30 rupees

"Three people were walking in the desert," Bcdefg123 said. "The three of them were all Hylians, and each consumed a cup of water regularly every three hours. Combined, they were carrying three gallons of water. They traveled one mile every 30 minutes. How far do they go before they run out of water? Your first hint is…"

-----

"Who cares?!" Raza yelled at him. "We need more water, or…" She stopped talking, and Bcdefg123 and Zelda looked back.

"Raza!" Bcdefg123 yelled. She had passed out on the burning sands, and had lost most of her bluish tint. She was now more a clammy grey than anything else.

"Take her and come." Bcdefg123 and Zelda turned around again and saw- if it wasn't a mirage- a tall man standing before them.

"Who are you?" Bcdefg123 said, standing up. The man had to be at least a foot taller than him.

"That does not matter right now. If your friend is to survive, she needs water. Come, to our oasis."  
_  
An oasis…_ Zelda thought.  
_  
In the desert?_ Bcdefg123 thought at the same time.

-----

"Welcome to the Gerudo Oasis," the man said. Bcdefg123 and Zelda were stunned. In the middle of the desert, a small village thrived around a desert oasis. "Take your Zora friend, and dump her in the water." They lugged Raza into the oasis, and a minute later, she stirred and started floating off the bottom.

"You are well…" The man had followed them to the oasis. "I must say, you are a very gutsy Zora. I have never heard of anybody like you crossing the desert… at least, crossing the desert and living to tell the tale."

"What is this village?" Bcdefg123 asked. "Why are you all the way out here?"

"This is the village of the Gerudo men."

"The Gerudo men?" Raza asked. "Why are there so many of you? I heard a man was only born every one hundred years…"

"Perhaps in the main Gerudo village, that might be true… but more than 100 years ago, Ganon singlehandedly created great tension between the Gerudo men and women. The women distrusted men in general, and the men started to do the same in turn. We almost went to war… until one day a wise warrior made a proposal. He said to the village: 'Myself and the best woman in the tribe shall fight. At the end, whoever is left standing shall determine the course of the tribe.' Being as prominent a figure in the tribe as he was, his proposal was accepted. The warrior fought, and he lost. Most of the men in the village were banished deep into the desert, as well as two women who heavily sympathized with us… and before we found our new home, the warrior was cannibalized by the other men, driven to desperation. But that is the past, and we do not have to resort to such meaningless methods now. We get what we need from the desert, not as lifeless as many believe it to be."

"That's crazy…" Bcdefg123 said. "That's… sexist…"

"We don't think much of it anymore," the man said. "We are not a race that dwells on the past. We have accepted what has happened. But enough about us. You must not have traveled this far into the desert without having a reason."

"Yes, we're looking for a piece of the Didgeridoo of… your necklace…" Zelda said.

"This is indeed a piece of a didgeridoo… but what makes you think that I will give it to you? The tale relating to this is that an explorer came, near death, to the Gerudo Village over 300 years ago. He was famished, dehydrated, and exhausted beyond our care, and his last words were to hide the object he had brought into the village, so that nobody would ever find it. That object was this didgeridoo piece. We took it with us when our village separated."

"Well, we need it. Somebody's blackmailing us, trying to get us to collect the didgeridoo pieces for them," Bcdefg123 said. "If we don't get it to them in two days…"

"Hyrule's going to be in danger," Zelda continued. "We got attacked, but the people who did it said it would be on a much bigger scale if we didn't give in."

"So…" the man said, "Do you have any idea who's sending you on this wild goose chase?"

"If we knew, we wouldn't have had to do this…" Bcdefg123 said. "But if you give us that one piece, we'd have the full thing… and we have time to figure out what it does before we need to hand it over."

"Alright. You have my trust," the man said, giving Bcdefg123 the other didgeridoo piece. For reasons unknown to anybody, Bcdefg123 did a 360 degree hop and thrust the didgeridoo piece into the air. "Please, if you like to, stay the night here before venturing out into the desert again. I'm sure the other people will welcome visitors to our lonely village."  
**  
END of Chapter 4**


	8. Chapter 5: I Am The Overlord

**The Hylian Domain Legacy 3 Chapter 5- I Am The Overlord  
**"Got some food for you…" Bcdefg123 said, tossing Raza a few pieces of food. Raza swam up to the shore of the oasis and ate the rough food "Cactus fruit… it's just about the only thing out here, besides… well, it's the only thing out here. But it's kind of good…"

"It is…" she said, and started to plow through the remaining fruits.  
_  
It's not THAT good, though…_ Bcdefg123 thought. The sweltering heat had died down, making the desert rather hospitable in the night. He looked up at the night sky. The countless stars twinkled in the sky. The sky…

Like the night sky back home…

On Earth…

Earth…

Was he still missed? Was the rest of the Domain awaiting his return, a return that might never happen? It had been eighty years, after all, since he had came to Hyrule… if he hadn't found a way back by now, did that mean one didn't exist at all? Or was it his own fault, for searching halfheartedly?

"What is it?" Raza asked. Bcdefg123's thoughts sharply fell back to earth- er, Hyrule.

"I'm… just thinking to myself…" he said. "I'm having trouble convincing myself that I either can or can't go back to Earth- when I make up my mind one way, I can't commit myself to see it. I have doubts. It's been eighty years since I came here… but…" Bcdefg123 remembered the Altik look-alike in Kakariko seventy years previously. "I can't fully convince myself that a way back does NOT exist. But I wonder whether I have to live with the consequences of choosing Hyrule over Earth- I was caught up in the moment, only had a few seconds to make a decision…"

"I think we both can learn from our mistakes…" Raza said.

"Huh? How so?"

"I spent my life under the impression that if the master sword ever were to be used again, I would have to absorb myself into it. When you showed up, I knew what I had to do. Or so I thought. I was kind of like you… unable to think clearly in the moment. But you and Zelda saved me…"  
_  
And you did it so readily! Like you weren't even worth anything in the first place!  
_  
"And thanks to you, I'm still here right now," Raza said. "One more second or two and…" she sighed, dipping her head underwater. Bcdefg123 smiled in spite of himself; after 82 years, it seemed he had finally done something to deserve the title of hero.

"Come closer…" Raza said. Bcdefg123 knelt down beside her. Then, without warning, she hugged Bcdefg123. Caught unaware, Raza's weight dragged Bcdefg123 into the water.

-----

"You're wet," Zelda said calmly. She was already in bed. Bcdefg123 came in dripping all over the floor (which was all sand).

"I know," he said, and went to bed himself.

-----

The Next Day

"So… this is it…" Zelda said. She, Raza, and Bcdefg123 sat around a complete Didgeridoo of Minutes. It was basically a long stick with a couple small holes in it. Bcdefg123 took it, and played everything he could think of that had worked on the Piano of Time. Nothing seemed to happen.

"So… what's it supposed to do?" Raza said.

"How would I know? You try," he said, tossing the instrument to Raza. A scorpion scuttled by, but Bcdefg123 was fairly certain that this was not the work of legendary hidden powers.

"Nothing," Raza said, handing the instrument back to Bcdefg123. He played all the tunes he could think of from Ocarina of Time, the Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, anything he thought, he played, to no avail.

"Let me try," Zelda said.

"Darn it, why isn't it working?" Bcdefg123 said. Zelda started playing the Didgeridoo.

"Well… did anyone ever say it had to do something?" Raza said, pitching forth an idea.

"Maybe the blackmailers are just really persistent antique collectors…" Zelda said. That sounded magnificently absurd, so Bcdefg123 ignored it.

"There's only one option, I guess. We'll only know for certain if we let them have it.

"You're just going to give it to them?!" Raza asked. "Then what about you?!"

"Relax, I have a plan," Bcdefg123 said. "Anybody know a good craftsman?"

-----

Hyrule Castle Town, the next day.

"Happy Mask shop at sundown…" Bcdefg123 said to himself.

"In the alley," Zelda added.

"Of course… it's always an alley…" Bcdefg123 responded.

"And you are…?" Raza said.

"Good eyes…" somebody said from the end of the alley. "You saw me before I saw you… but you're not the one I'm supposed to kill."

"What?" Bcdefg123 said. "Kill… us?"

"Yes," Echo said, stepping into Bcdefg123's view. "I am supposed to kill you and your friend. Not the Zora," she said.

"But why you?" Bcdefg123 said. "I don't understand! Why did you give Zelda that dagger? Why did you leave us alive that day? Why do you want- gaah!" Bcdefg123 knelt down in pain. Three separate wounds appeared on his left leg.

"If you don't want to fight, that's your decision," Echo said, having deftly moved opposite of the three. "But if you don't defend yourself, you'll die." Bcdefg123 knelt down from the pain.

"Then let's go!" Bcdefg123 took out the Master Sword. "Zelda! Raza!" He looked around him. Raza had vanished. "Wh… Raza?!"

"The Zora left…" Echo said. "That is more convenient for both of us. Now… if you hand over the Didgeridoo, I'll kill you in the fastest way I know how."

"Never…" Bcdefg123 said, clutching the sword in his hand tightly. He spun around to face Echo and managed to block her next strike.

"You've improved…" she said, surprised. "Blocking a dagger with a sword is very difficult."

"I haven't even used the sword since I saw you last… in the gallery," Bcdefg123 said.

"So it's just luck?" Echo asked, slashing away, felling Bcdefg123. He lay in a pool of blood, and could not move. "I thought so." Zelda gasped. "And don't think I've forgotten about you…" Echo said, facing Zelda next. Instead of running away, she steeled herself, taking out the dagger that Echo had given her. "So… you want to go the same way as him, then." Echo lunged at Zelda, and Zelda blocked her every move. "So, I was wrong," Echo said. "You're the one who improved."

The last thing Bcdefg123 saw was their battle. _I… never saw Zelda… use it… so how did… she get… so good?_

And as the day gave way to the night, one of the Heroes of the Hylian Domain gave way to death.

-----

"You're good…" Echo said. "I have to commend you… perhaps you were just blessed with good fighting skills."

"Maybe… maybe not," Zelda said.

"But… you're not better than me!" Echo said, and slashed Zelda's jugular vein. She fell backwards onto the ground. "Now, who has the Didgeridoo? Ah… so you had it…" Echo said, collecting the didgeridoo, which Bcdefg123 had hidden inside his shirt. She walked off with it, going towards Castle Town's privileged district, not noticing the person tailing her. Had she stayed behind just a bit longer, she would have noticed one of Hyrule's three goddesses, enveloped in blinding white light, appearing over Zelda and Bcdefg123. But she didn't, so she hadn't. And such is life.

_-----_

_"So… a spare didgeridoo?" Raza said. "You're going to pull one over on them, then?"_

"You got it," Bcdefg123 said. "We're going to fool them into thinking that the fake's the real deal. I'm going to carry the fake."

"Who's carrying the real one?" Zelda said.

"That'll probably be… you, Raza," Bcdefg123 said. "There's a lot of unknowns in this plan, but the gist is that we fool the enemy into thinking that you deserted us mid-battle, assuming, of course, that the enemy will attack us for the didgeridoo. Me and Zelda will fight, and you'll run off and watch from a safe distance, hidden from view. If the enemy ends up taking the fake, you'll follow them, and discover what makes the Didgeridoo powerful. And then… you'll do whatever you need to do to stop them. Hopefully it doesn't come to that…  
  
Determinedly, Raza followed Echo all the way to Vercingetorix's house. Echo knocked on the door, and somebody let her in. Raza sneaked up to a window. Inside, three people were in a single room. One was Echo, another one seemed a bit familiar to Raza, although she could not tell how, and one was not familiar to her at all.

"Excellent…" the man who Raza didn't know at all said, taking the didgeridoo in exchange for a small pouch that he handed to Echo.

"You'll find the two you ordered killed outside, in the 12th Street Alleyway."

"Good job. Your services are no longer required," the man with blue hair said. Echo left the house.

"What are you going to do with that?" the other person in the room asked, and Raza then remembered where she saw him before- he looked very much like his brother, King Regis of Hyrule. Raza couldn't be completely sure, but that's what it looked like nonetheless.

"Playing the tune of the Didgeridoo will be able to do the impossible… reverse time." Looking at a piece of paper, the blue-haired man played a song on the fake didgeridoo. Raza listened carefully to the rhythm of the song. The man finished. He looked around. "Why… why didn't it work?!" he yelled, looking around for some answer. Raza focused on replicating the song the man had played, trying not to arouse attention. When the song finished, Raza gasped. The leaves on the ground were floating up and attaching themselves to the trees. The sky got lighter as the sun rose up from the west. Seized with a feeling of euphoria, she ran to where Zelda and Bcdefg123 had fallen to Echo… and discovered that they had reverted back to life. Raza's next emotion was one of worry.  
_  
How… how do I stop going back?_ She played the tune that the man had played again, and the flow of time went back to normal. While she had fiddled with the instrument, she had failed to notice the white light once again.

"And how did you come to possess that didgeridoo?" Dylan Mills said, standing before Raza. She had traveled back in time too far. With no other options, she ran for it. Dylan chased her throughout Castle Town, and after a good amount of time had passed, she was sure she had lost him. Realizing that the sun was about to be in the same position as it was when she, Zelda, and Bcdefg123 had first wandered into Castle Town, she ran to the city's gates. Sure enough, the three walked in.

"It's…" Bcdefg123 said, looking from the 'current' Raza to the 'future' Raza.

"It's me…" Raza said.

"There's no time to explain," Raza said, thrusting the Didgeridoo into Bcdefg123's hands. "Just get out of here as soon as possible, or…"

"Got it!" Dylan said, popping out from nowhere and snatching the Didgeridoo from out of Bcdefg123's very confused hands.

"No!" Both Razas said. Dylan started to play the tune that reversed time, and he disappeared. The future Raza also disappeared.

"O… kay…" Bcdefg123 said, having no clue what had just happened.

-----

"Come with me!" Dylan said, having traveled forward in time to when after Echo had left the Vercingetorix Estate.

"You got it? What can it do?" Vercingetorix said.

"You're about to find out, Rex…"

"It's VERCINGETORIX!" he yelled.

-----

Dylan played the Didgeridoo as he and Vercingetorix approached the castle. Every guard that they saw froze in place.

"Amazing…" Vercingetorix said.

"Isn't it?" Dylan answered. "Now, for the King…" he said, moving on into the castle.

"He's not in the throne room," Vercingetorix said. "He must be on the second floor." They moved up without any resistance of any kind.

"I… had wondered who had broken into the castle…" King Regis said, looking out over the castle's balcony. "Brother… what did you come here to do?" King Regis froze in place. Dylan stopped playing the Didgeridoo. Vercingetorix walked toward his brother, and unsheathed a sword.

"I want to kill you," he said softly, slashing at his brother, the King. He fell over the balcony, becoming unfrozen in midfall. He died when he hit the ground.

"Dylan here. Takeover is complete. Send in the backup," he said into a phone-like device.

"Understood. The army has been deployed…" a voice said back.

-----

Outer Castle Town

Cries came from further in the city. "What's happening?" he said. He, Zelda, and Raza ran towards the source of the commotion. A crowd was forming on Castle Street. "What happened?" he asked nobody in particular.

"Somebody fell from the castle balcony! And somebody else is up there with a sword!"

"Dangit!" Bcdefg123 said, running past the frozen guards into the castle. Outside the city, a small army of about 100 walked in, all carrying swords. They also all looked like Altiks, but with slight differentiations on each of them. They pushed through the crowd and entered the castle behind Bcdefg123, Zelda, and Raza.

-----

Inside The Castle

"It just keeps getting better and better…" Bcdefg123 said, noticing the Altiks entering the castle. They were in the throne room. Most of them went up the stairs, but a few stayed behind, guarding the stairs, and about 10 chased Bcdefg123, Zelda, and Raza.

"In here!" Zelda said, opening a door behind the throne. They kept running and found themselves going down a set of stairs, followed by…"

"Dangit! A locked door!" Bcdefg123 said, failing to open it.

"That means we're trapped…" Raza said.

"Then we fight our way out. Come on!" Bcdefg123 said, unsheathing the Master Sword, swinging madly at the Altiks. Zelda did the same with the dagger, and Raza just kicked and punched whatever she could. One of the Altiks slashed the door behind them, but Zelda was quick enough to get out of the way and paid him back in kind. After a while, all of the Altiks had been felled, with little damage incurred.

Bcdefg123 slumped down. "I hope I never have to do that again…"

"We can't stop!" Raza said.

"We have to go upstairs…" Zelda added.

"Yeah, I know, I was just…" Bcdefg123 stopped. He saw a glimmer of light shining on the wall, and he turned around, realizing it came from beyond the locked door. The Altik had destroyed the lock, and, ignoring Zelda and Raza's pleas to go up instead, Bcdefg123 went in.

"I can't believe… it was here…" A portal for travel between universes stood before him.

"Why here?" Zelda asked.

"No clue… but wow, this is way more advanced than any other portal I've seen…" Bcdefg123 said, coming across an interactive map of Earth. You… can even pick the place where it takes you!" With all haste, Bcdefg123 located Thrillsville, and the portal glowed brighter.

"Here goes…" Bcdefg123 said, walking through. Zelda and Raza reluctantly followed him.

"The army is in," Dylan's voice came through a device. "The King is dead, but we have reason to believe there are still others in the building."

"Never mind them. The Kitla lot will take care of them," another person said, answering it. "That's all, then?"

"Yes," Dylan said, and the device clicked to signify the end of the conversation.

"Are the reserves ready for deployment into Castle Town?" the person said.

"Yes…" said the person who had attacked the real Altik said.

"Excellent…" said the other person. He turned around, and stepped into the light.

Eight years older, and approximately eight years eviler, Marcus relished the fact that his plan was going perfectly.

-----

Brian's House, Earth

"Aah!" Bcdefg123 fell from the ceiling. It appeared that the portal was not all that accurate. Zelda and Raza fell on top of him. Bcdefg123 looked up at the ceiling. The portal was still active, hanging in midair.

"And what do you think…" Brian stopped, and his eyes widened in shock upon seeing the face belonging to the person on the bottom.

"Uh… are you still mad at me then?" Bcdefg123 said, smiling tentatively. Brian started laughing. Bcdefg123 joined in.

He was home.  
**  
END of Chapter 5**


End file.
